The Use of Mythology and Mythological Adaptations as Moralistic and Philosophical Teaching Tools in Video Games
Through modern invention, many facets have been created to both teach young people about the world around them and to entertain. Until the 1980s, it can be argued that the concept of using visually interactive teaching tools was a foreign idea to most people, not to mention the thought of using a mythological background as a basis for a concept. However, due to its use in several video games that have come into prominent fame in recent years, it has proven a useful medium to at least stir the imaginations and curiosities of several members of the younger generations.
When one thinks of the reason to use mythology in a video game concept, one also has to think why. Joseph Campbell, in his Masks of Gods series, presents a valid idea for why it has become such an easily chosen basis:
"Through modern science mythology has been refuted in practically all its details; yet in its primary insight into the presence and operation of common laws throughout the fabric of the universe—laws including human life as well as the kingdoms of the animals, plants, and heavenly spheres—it announced not only the main theme but also the chief source of the fascination of science, and perhaps of life itself." (Primitive Mythology, 180)
Essentially, because mythology is such a fascinating subject, it is easy for anyone who happens to be playing a game to be entranced by it and their suspension of disbelief is readily activated in order to find out what will happen in the end.
With the use of mythology coming to the fore, it is only natural for the inclusion of moral and philosophical motifs to follow. During the course of several legends (especially in the African, Native American and Southern American traditional myths), life lessons and moral stories are introduced through a variety of characters and familiar stories that many children are familiar with (i.e. The Tortoise and the Hare, the Briar Rabbit series, and the Fox and Raven stories).
Admittedly, the amount of adherence to the traditional legends from their original translations is typically somewhat laughable; in Nintendo's 1986 release, "Kid Icarus," the main character, Pit, is an angel that is called upon to save the Roman gods from imprisonment by Medusa. However, there is still something to be said for the amount of detail that some developers and others involved in the video game-making industry will go, including going so far as to create their own mythologies (that still follow the rules of Campbell's four functions of myth as presented in Creative Mythology) in the case of some of some of the more prominent games like Nintendo's "Legend of Zelda" series and Square Enix's "Final Fantasy" series.
In terms of games themselves, the level of adherence to which the legends are used varies greatly depending on the game. Some developers have chosen to stick more closely to specific references to gods and certain mythological events, as in the case of SCE Studios Santa Monica's God of War, while others choose to loosely interpret and use figures and objects from various myths and legends throughout a series of works, as is the case with Square Enix's Final Fantasy series.
